The Grade 5 teacher asked if one of our book groups could model their discussion for them, as I had done for my class. She thought it would have greater impact from older students, rather than adults, and, even though she has tried to get book studies going with her class the discussion has not flowed very well.
I volunteered a group (after receiving no volunteers) and I observed them as they modelled their discussion to the class.
They were excellent. The Grade 5 teacher was thrilled with the modelled discussion and her classes' response after we left. It really enthused her class and they were able to evaluate the discussion and draw out the benefits of group discussion of books.
As Hannibal says 'I love it when a plan comes together!'
Thursday 25 November 2010
Taking it Further
The results of the Written Conversation (see previous blog) were so good that I wanted to share them to the wider class. I wasn't sure of the best way to do this - Harvey and ....... suggested taking one comment from each student to celebrate their thinking but I wanted to celebrate all the thinking that had gone on as I was really impressed by it and I thought the whole class would benefit from the thinking of each group.
In the end, I wrote out the first question/thought/idea/comment of each conversation, and posed it to the whole class giving those not in the group a chance to engage with it. It worked very well and I ended by pinning the questions and the written conversations on our bulletin board for The Great Gatsby.
In the end, I wrote out the first question/thought/idea/comment of each conversation, and posed it to the whole class giving those not in the group a chance to engage with it. It worked very well and I ended by pinning the questions and the written conversations on our bulletin board for The Great Gatsby.
Tuesday 23 November 2010
Written Conversation
I tried something new this morning courtesy of Harvey and Daniels Comprehension and Collaboration, 2009. I had suggested the idea to my AP Eng colleague and she had trialled it on Friday and was pleased with it. She suggested giving writing prompts to the class before they started, which I thought was a good idea.
My class split into groups of 5 and held a "written conversation" on The Great Gatsby. Each student had a piece of paper and began a conversation based on some response to the novel or character. After a couple of minutes (when I could see almost everyone was done) they passed the paper to the person on their left, read what was on the paper in front of them and then responded to the writing. After a couple of minutes we (I was in a group too) passed the paper again.
This way everyone participates and has something to say and there are 5 simultaneous conversations taking place. It's based on student thinking/engagement with the text and they think through an idea in more depth.
The end product was really good and showed the students had not only thought through the issues raised but have really been thinking through the novel as they read.
My class split into groups of 5 and held a "written conversation" on The Great Gatsby. Each student had a piece of paper and began a conversation based on some response to the novel or character. After a couple of minutes (when I could see almost everyone was done) they passed the paper to the person on their left, read what was on the paper in front of them and then responded to the writing. After a couple of minutes we (I was in a group too) passed the paper again.
This way everyone participates and has something to say and there are 5 simultaneous conversations taking place. It's based on student thinking/engagement with the text and they think through an idea in more depth.
The end product was really good and showed the students had not only thought through the issues raised but have really been thinking through the novel as they read.
Monday 22 November 2010
Warning:Spoiler Ahead
I read some chapters of a book called Mindset by Carol Dweck over the weekend. It basically talks about fixed and growth mindsets and I wanted to share this with my students to encourage them to believe that intelligence can grow and develop, it is not based on what we are born with!
After quickly talking them through the diagram at the end of the book, I was going to move on to some pretty heavy Great Gatsby work but, although they had listened to the mindset review, I could tell they were not quite with me this morning. (There was a student banquet on Sat and I think they were more tired and behind in school work than normal!) Most of them were too concerned about what tests they had and what work they hadn't done over the weekend.
I decided to abandon the heavy work and get the film version of Great Gatsby out instead. We could watch the beginning and discuss whether it captured the novel.
We started with the Robert Redford/Mia Farrow version. It has a protracted start over the credits with a slooooooooooooooow build up. As we moved into the story, despite getting the background noise and music, we could not hear the dialogue! I messed around with wires, still no dialogue. So we watched a few minutes of mime. I paused the video and we discussed the visualisation of the characters and set - did it match with ours?
I had another film version too - Paul Rudd/Toby Stephens/. It started very close to the book - narration by Nick. Then it moved to Gatsby in the pool and showed him being shot. There was an eruption in the classroom.
"What just happened?"
"Is that the end?"
"Noooooo, does Gatsby die?"
Whoops! None of the class has reached the end of the novel yet! So I kind of ruined it for them. I'm trying to spin it as motivation - "Now you'll want to read because you don't know who shot Gatsby or why"!!
Note to teacher: watch film first so you know what's coming!
After quickly talking them through the diagram at the end of the book, I was going to move on to some pretty heavy Great Gatsby work but, although they had listened to the mindset review, I could tell they were not quite with me this morning. (There was a student banquet on Sat and I think they were more tired and behind in school work than normal!) Most of them were too concerned about what tests they had and what work they hadn't done over the weekend.
I decided to abandon the heavy work and get the film version of Great Gatsby out instead. We could watch the beginning and discuss whether it captured the novel.
We started with the Robert Redford/Mia Farrow version. It has a protracted start over the credits with a slooooooooooooooow build up. As we moved into the story, despite getting the background noise and music, we could not hear the dialogue! I messed around with wires, still no dialogue. So we watched a few minutes of mime. I paused the video and we discussed the visualisation of the characters and set - did it match with ours?
I had another film version too - Paul Rudd/Toby Stephens/. It started very close to the book - narration by Nick. Then it moved to Gatsby in the pool and showed him being shot. There was an eruption in the classroom.
"What just happened?"
"Is that the end?"
"Noooooo, does Gatsby die?"
Whoops! None of the class has reached the end of the novel yet! So I kind of ruined it for them. I'm trying to spin it as motivation - "Now you'll want to read because you don't know who shot Gatsby or why"!!
Note to teacher: watch film first so you know what's coming!
Thursday 18 November 2010
Grading the book study
My class and I had a very interesting discussion today about whether I should grade the book groups. They were split about half and half as to whether they wanted it graded so we moved on to how to grade. We opened a Google doc and one of the guys typed the ideas that came up. It became an animated discussion as we gradually moved to what would be graded. I want to make sure they have read the book, but not just to have got it done but to have engaged with it as well. I was trying to emphasise that it wasn't the level of understanding I was interested in but the personal interaction with the novel. One student couldn't handle this and one of his hang-ups was the fear that he would be graded by comparing his understanding to another student's understanding (I assured him this wouldn't happen).
Overall, this was a useful exercise as it made my students reflect on what and why they were reading the novel; what the grade was being given for and gave them ownership of the grading.
Overall, this was a useful exercise as it made my students reflect on what and why they were reading the novel; what the grade was being given for and gave them ownership of the grading.
Friday 12 November 2010
I Wonder....
Fridays are Creative Writing day in my IG class. This has been instituted because at the end of the first quarter I wrote a letter to the class giving my views on our first quarter together. Things I liked about the class, things I thought we had learned and had enjoyed, things I thought I needed to improve. I asked them to write a reply to the letter as an evaluation of the quarter. The class wrote the evaluation in class in 30 minutes (good practice for their exam at the end of the year!). I invited them to be honest, with no fear of retribution! : )
One of the overwhelming "likes" of the class was the time I gave them for creative writing (we studied the 6+1 traits during first quarter) so I decided it was worth continuing this. They write a draft in class time and hand them in for comments from me. I give them back, they file them and before the end of quarter they will choose two to revise and publish.
The last two weeks I have given them free reign in their choice of subject but I noticed that some were struggling for ideas. So this week, I asked the class to keep an "I wonder...." question list. I modelled this by keeping a list of "I wonder..." questions over the weekend and shared them with the class on Monday. They then had to compile questions for Friday. They then shared 3 or so of these with the rest of the class this morning and chose ideas from the questions to write on. They didn't have to answer the question, just use it as a prompt for ideas. They didn't have to use this if they had a clear idea of what they wanted to write. Some of the class started stories last week and are continuing them.
One of the overwhelming "likes" of the class was the time I gave them for creative writing (we studied the 6+1 traits during first quarter) so I decided it was worth continuing this. They write a draft in class time and hand them in for comments from me. I give them back, they file them and before the end of quarter they will choose two to revise and publish.
The last two weeks I have given them free reign in their choice of subject but I noticed that some were struggling for ideas. So this week, I asked the class to keep an "I wonder...." question list. I modelled this by keeping a list of "I wonder..." questions over the weekend and shared them with the class on Monday. They then had to compile questions for Friday. They then shared 3 or so of these with the rest of the class this morning and chose ideas from the questions to write on. They didn't have to answer the question, just use it as a prompt for ideas. They didn't have to use this if they had a clear idea of what they wanted to write. Some of the class started stories last week and are continuing them.
Thursday 11 November 2010
Book Club modelling
3 members of staff and myself modelled a book club to my Grade 10 students this morning. We are reading The Great Gatsby and I am sure this will be the most interesting way for the class to read the novel.
I havered between the class choosing their own groups or assigning groups but decided this time that I would group the class as I am concerned about some of the dynamics and kids often seem to gravitate into the same groups.
The class have not started the novel but we decided to go ahead and discuss chapter 1 regardless. When I talked about it with one of the participants (the Elem literacy coordinator) we thought it might motivate the kids to read the book as they had a pretty negative view of the book before reading it (and I have a pretty negative view of the book after reading it!). This turned out to be a good decision - it did motivate the class and they expressed a greater interest in reading the novel.
I gave them key questions to focus their observations on the group and when we finished, asked them to "turn and talk" (taken from Stephanie Harvey's work) through the questions before asking for their feedback to the whole class.
The questions were:
What do you think is the purpose of the book club?
Why do you think the book club achieves its purpose?
What did you see/hear that showed the book club working well?
What did you see/hear that did not work well?
Judging by the feedback I received, the book club model worked very well in motivating the class to read the novel and excited to start the process themselves (I didn't even get any gripes about the reading groups). They saw how talking about the chapter expanded each participant's view of what they had read and deepened their understanding of the novel.
Each group compiled a calendar of reading and meeting to discuss over the next three weeks and a set of ground rules for their group, both of which they submitted to me.
One of those great lessons that works as you want it to!
I havered between the class choosing their own groups or assigning groups but decided this time that I would group the class as I am concerned about some of the dynamics and kids often seem to gravitate into the same groups.
The class have not started the novel but we decided to go ahead and discuss chapter 1 regardless. When I talked about it with one of the participants (the Elem literacy coordinator) we thought it might motivate the kids to read the book as they had a pretty negative view of the book before reading it (and I have a pretty negative view of the book after reading it!). This turned out to be a good decision - it did motivate the class and they expressed a greater interest in reading the novel.
I gave them key questions to focus their observations on the group and when we finished, asked them to "turn and talk" (taken from Stephanie Harvey's work) through the questions before asking for their feedback to the whole class.
The questions were:
What do you think is the purpose of the book club?
Why do you think the book club achieves its purpose?
What did you see/hear that showed the book club working well?
What did you see/hear that did not work well?
Judging by the feedback I received, the book club model worked very well in motivating the class to read the novel and excited to start the process themselves (I didn't even get any gripes about the reading groups). They saw how talking about the chapter expanded each participant's view of what they had read and deepened their understanding of the novel.
Each group compiled a calendar of reading and meeting to discuss over the next three weeks and a set of ground rules for their group, both of which they submitted to me.
One of those great lessons that works as you want it to!
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